Haverford CollegeLibraries

The Libraries have compiled these resources to help students in planning their research and sharing their research with a wider audience. Subject librarians can offer support and assistance as needed.

Planning Your Research

Human subjects

If you plan to involve people in experiments or interview them as part of a senior thesis research project, consult your faculty advisor about whether the Office of the Provost’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) needs to approve your proposal prior to beginning the research. Your subject librarian can help with questions and literature reviews relative to research strategies that incorporate human subjects.

Outreach to other libraries

Librarians can provide ways to identify source material, find information on collections at other institutions and advise on methods for making inquiries and arranging access. When planning an in-person visit to a library or archive, contact your subject librarian for advice about previewing their collections. If you are visiting collections in another country, your subject librarian can give you a letter of introduction which simplifies your registration.

Research Funding

Check your department page/s for funding that covers travel for research or conferences. In addition, the KINSC, Hurford Center and CPGC all provide funded research opportunities. The Libraries Research Award recognizes one rising senior in the spring with $4,500 to support their thesis research. In the fall, there is a $2000 research grant for a senior thesis writer. Both grant recipients receive a $500 recognition gift at commencement.

Senior Thesis Research

Subject librarians have specially created resource lists for senior thesis writers. Check your department's listings for thesis class research guides. Contact your subject librarian for a thesis research consultation and keep that conversation going as your work develops.

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Sharing and Archiving Your Research

Thesis Archive

Seniors are invited to submit a copy of their thesis, artwork or other capstone project to the libraries' thesis archive. This includes Bryn Mawr students who major at Haverford. Haverford seniors receive an email invitation from the Registrar as part of the graduation process. Bryn Mawr students, Haverford alumni, and students who may have missed the Registrar’s message can submit their theses at any time on the Senior Thesis Archive page.

In many cases, students determine the level of public access for their theses in consultation with their advisors. Some departments, however, have policies that restrict access to all their theses. Other options include the dark archive (available only to departmental faculty), Haverford only, Bico, Trico or Open Access. Students can also choose an embargo or hold for a range of years at one access level and then have it switched to another. This can be especially advantageous for students who are planning to do further research and writing on their thesis topics.

Consider the advantages of submitting your thesis to the archive and making it available open access. Future students in your major will be able to benefit from your ideas and source list. You can link to your thesis as an example of academic writing. Other researchers will be able to contact you to share information or ask questions.

Students who include images in their theses and are considering the open access option should talk with their subject librarian. If the images are high resolution or full size, they will need to be documented in terms of reproduction rights. This could include noting that an image is in the public domain, is reproduced with permission or was photographed by the thesis author. See the Use of Images section below for more information. If high resolution images are not documented, library staff may have to remove them from theses.

Conferences

Another way to share your work is to present at conferences. There are many opportunities for you to do so as an undergraduate. Types of conferences you might consider include:

• Undergraduate or student sessions at major professional association conferences in your discipline, for example the American Philosophical Association’s “AAPT-Teaching Hub” session includes poster presentations by students.
• Disciplinary conferences and symposia specifically for undergraduates.
• Interdisciplinary research events (these are often regional).

Presenting at a conference can provide various benefits. For example, conferences provide opportunities to:

• Share your work with other students and sometimes professional scholars with similar interests.
• Gain valuable experience presenting and fielding questions.
• In preparing your work, sharpen your thinking and make your presentation more concise and effective.
• Receive valuable feedback and become better acquainted with research trends in your field.

This is also an excellent way to prepare work you might wish to publish. In addition to the benefits of preparing and presenting your research, some conferences also publish their proceedings. Conference proceedings take various forms, but in many cases resemble an edited volume of scholarly essays or an issue of a journal. In such cases, conference participants are allowed an opportunity to share an elaborated version of what they presented, and perhaps the whole underlying research paper.

The following are examples of undergraduate research conferences or broader conferences with opportunities for undergraduate presentations:

• Multidisciplinary
  • National Conference on Undergraduate Research
  • National Collegiate Research Conference (at Harvard)
  • Undergraduate Research at the Capitol - Pennsylvania
  • Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference for Undergraduate Scholarship (MARCUS)
• Humanities
  • Asian Studies Development Program National Conference
  • Northeast Modern Language Association Undergraduate Forum
  • PhilEvents (Conference Database)
  • Macksey Symposium (at Johns Hopkins)
  • Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium Undergraduate Conference
• Social Sciences
  • Northeastern Political Science Association Conference
  • American Psychological Association Convention
  • James A. Barnes Conference in History (at Temple)
• STEM
  • Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists
  • International Forum on Research Excellence
  • MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference
  • National Diversity in STEM Conference
  • Philadelphia Area Mathematics Conference Series
  • Sigma Xi (at Saint Joseph’s)

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Publishing

Undergraduate Journals

Many colleges and universities sponsor journals which publish articles written by students in different subject areas. This is an opportunity to share research you have done and rework a course paper into a more compact and compelling presentation. Faculty members, particularly the teacher in whose class you wrote a paper, can provide important advice in revising your work and in identifying potential journals for submission.

In learning more about journals for which to write, consider these criteria when reviewing recent issues:

• How do the journal editors determine what to publish? Consult the journal’s site and check for a masthead (or list of editorial board members) and information about the review process.
• How have authors in the journal presented their arguments and sources?
• Are there articles from people at other institutions rather than just the sponsoring university?
• How long has the journal been in operation?
• How are illustrations handled? Are they accompanied by a caption with description and rights information?

See lists of journals in all subject areas from the Council on Undergraduate Research, CUNY and Stony Brook University. Ask your subject librarian for additional journals in your area of interest. See examples of Haverford students’ articles published in undergraduate journals.

Self-Publishing

If you would like to have your thesis printed and bound, Fireball Printing is a local option for these services.

Predatory Publishers

• Researchers writing in Nature defined the problem as "Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices." (11 Dec. 2019)
• Verifying the ethics of a journal or publisher through documentation about their editorial board and review process is a way to avoid problems. The Directory of Open Access Journals reviews and lists open access titles which adhere to best practices. They also maintain a list of journals that have been removed from the Directory and the reasons for that action.

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Copyright

• Copyright Resource Guide: The Libraries created this guide to provide guidance on using copyrighted material, making a fair use determination, understanding the public domain, interpreting licenses, and related topics. Several typical use cases are provided, though the list is far from exhaustive. Please be in touch with your subject librarian if you need additional assistance regarding copyright.
• Use of images: In order to use an image for publication, authors need to determine if it is copyrighted. Your subject librarian can help in identifying the rights holder of an image, suggesting ways to seek permission for use, and advising on commercial image providers. There are multiple sources of copyright-free images, including Wikimedia Commons and Artstor's Images for Academic Publication. Additional sites like Flickr allow users to filter in terms of license. Some museums and libraries make images available, often according to usage. See the image banks listings from the College Art Association.